The Internet Movie Database is very useful and even enlightening, but is at the mercy of those who write in to contribute to sections like the synopsis of a film. Take “Braveheart” – Please!!
No, but seriously, folks –
I had a look at the IMDb info on Mel Gibson’s effort and straightaway saw:
“In the 13th Century England, after several years of political unrest in Scotland, the land is open to an invasion from the south.”
This seems to say that Scotland was (maybe still is?) part of England. I grant you that from the point of view of Edward Langshanks, it should have been. But this is of course the long-standing point of contention – how the English (establishment) view Scotland. There’s a pretty decent little songbook put out by A L Lloyd called Singing Englishmen, which contains the songs presented at a celebration of British folk song hosted by Lloyd on 1 June 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. It was an interesting programme, sung by the Workers’ Music Association Choir, with arrangements by the composer Alan Bush, and featured songs from all over Britain, and so inevitably included some Scottish songs. Lloyd was of course equating England with Britain, an arrogant and unthinking attitude, but he is not alone. I remember the outrage I felt as a teenager lang syne when I opened up Stanley Gibbons’ stamp magazine to read that “Many Englishmen, some of whom were Scotsmen, have been featured on stamps.” The editor gave an asterisk and a footnote to the effect that those were the contributor’s words, and while he was allowing them to stand (no censorship) he was keeping out of it.
But there it is. Somewhere I read that back in the 1700s an English parliamentarian exclaimed in astonished argument “Are not the Scots English?” – echoed I suppose by foreigners who equate the two very easily. French doesn’t speak about the British; it’s les anglais, of course, and when I was in Paris I took pains to tell my landlady that I was écossais. The Americans seem to be similarly careless a good deal of the time, but Canada with more memories of its Scottish heritage sensibly differentiates.
One of the consequences however of this ambiguity is that the separateness of the two countries is not considered, which has led to an emphasis on “Britishness”. That concept only got going after the union of parliaments, spurred on by the incorporation of Ireland around 1800; Scotland being referred to as “North Britain”, abbreviated on addresses to “N.B.” You don’t see that these days, thank goodness, although my fellow-Fifer Gordon Brown is on record as telling Americans, wasn’t it, that he came from North Britain (besides trying to erode his Scots accent, like an eighteenth-century hopeful wanting to get on in the real capital). Such things have for the most part disappeared, for somehow or other there has been an amazing upsurge in national pride of late, certainly since I emigrated to fresh woods in 1960. This does not mean, naturally, that everyone is waving the saltire with enthusiasm. All of a sudden the Labour Party is joining forces with its enemy the Conservative Party, along with the hapless Liberal Democrats, to put obstacles in the way of the Scottish Nationalists who quite understandably want to free Scotland of the English yoke. To this end, they are forming an unlikely coalition to support Westminster in its determination to run, or certainly put strings on, the referendum on separation promised by the SNP.
It’s as if the Scottish sections of the three main parties are playing down the Scottishness and saying they welcome English interference. One must not, naturally, impugn their patriotism or call them ant-Scottish (as one wee lass dared to in Holyrood the other day) – perish that thought!! But one can think of other adjectives.
Actually, I do think that the referendum, promised for 2014, will show a majority for independence. After the break, whenever that is in fact accomplished, those parties, now tied to the apron strings of their London HQ and the mother of parliaments, will be free to develop on their own in their own directions. I bet though that a few of them will mutter “Ah, but if we were still British, I might have made it to the ermine….!”

Happy New Year, by the way, to all my readers. One of my resolutions is to be a bit more regular with this weblog. It all depends of course on how riled or inspired I become. What I can promise you is a poem or two (Scots and English), and a tune or two (of my own devising), forbye a translation or two, and a bittie folklore.

The SNP’s problem is that they really have no post-Union ambitions other than becoming another EU ‘have-not’ state like Ireland (or indeed Greece, with their common patron Saint).

Far better to throw in their lot with us as Canada’s 11th province, and reap the benefits of our oil-extraction knowhow and mature transfer-payments scheme. As Jack Whyte put it:-

“Ask anyone who knows
MacDonalds who are Eskimos”

In return we could call Glenmorangie “Canadian Whisky”, a nice little earner on the world trade circuit, reintroduce sound policies and procedures (developed by first-wave Scottish immigrants) to the Scottish Banking system in much the same way that California rescued the French viticulture industry destroyed by phylloxeria, and even offer a land exchange – Quebec for Caledonia!

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